According to the literature, CT aortic measurements suffer from high variability and scarse reproducibility being influenced by many factors[1–3]. With the recent introduction of dual energy CT systems and their spectral reconstructions, this problem may be emphasized. Dual energy techniques have been regarded as very useful in cardiovascular imaging mainly due to the possibility of enhancing iodine contrast media at lower energies[4, 5]. However, the impact of these reconstructions on aortic diameter measurements has not been investigated. The purpose of our study is to test...

We retrospectively analysed 30 angio-DECT performed between January and December 2018. CT acquisitions CT acquisitions were performed using a dual-layer detector CT with retrospective ECG gating. Standard coronary CT scan parameters were employed (tube potential, 120 kVp; tube current, 220 mAs; portal revolution time of 0.27s; automatic exposure control (angular and longitudinal); detector collimation of 64x0.625mm). Bolus tracking was used to start the acquisition. For all patients the same contrast material (Iomeron 400) was employed. The injection protocol was: 70 mL in patients 80 kg,...

Patients’ characteristics The mean age was 54,3 ± 19,7 (23-80) and 82% of patients were males. Manual measurements We found significantly higher values of aortic diameter measurements between conventional and spectral 40keV images for both observers (mean difference: 0.6±0.6 and 0.7±0.6mm; max difference: 2.4 and 1.8mm; p

Manual measurements of the two observers were significantly higher for conventional images as compared to 40keV images. Differences seemed progressively higher for lower virtual monoenergetic levels as compared to conventional images. Concerning the automatic software analysis, our study found a software running defect for lower monenergetic reconstructions as well as a significant measurement difference between conventional and 60keV images.

Vincenzo De Stasio, radiology resident at University Hospital 'Policlinico Tor Vergata', Roma. mail: [email protected]

1. Erbel R, Aboyans V, Boileau C, et al (2014) 2014 ESC Guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of aortic diseases: Document covering acute and chronic aortic diseases of the thoracic and abdominal aorta of the adult. The Task Force for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Aortic Diseases of the European. Eur Heart J 35:2873–2926 2. Goldstein SA, Evangelista A, Abbara S, et al (2015) Multimodality Imaging of Diseases of the Thoracic Aorta in Adults: From the American Society of Echocardiography and the European Association...